Privacy and Cookies

The British Horse Society Qualifications Ltd (BHSQ ) is a data controller registered with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (Registration Number: ZA445079).

Keeping your personal information safe is very important to us. We are committed to complying with privacy and data protection laws and being transparent about how we process personal data.

We have policies, procedures and training in place to help our employees, consultants and learners understand their data protection responsibilities and follow the data protection principles.

We have a nominated member of staff who serves as our Data Protection Lead. If you have any questions regarding our Privacy Policy, please email dataprotection@bhs.org.uk

This privacy policy relates to our use of any personal information we process about you.

How we collect personal data

We may collect your personal data in different ways, for example:

when you, your parent or guardian, your tutor, training provider or coach communicate with us by post, telephone, SMS, email or via our website
from the information you provide to us when you make an application to work for us, register for a qualification or from third parties such as your previous or current employers so we can verify details about you
as you interact with us in other ways; as a contractor, or in any other capacity

How we use personal information

We collect and use personal information about our learners, workforce, supporters, job applicants and volunteers for different purposes.

Provision of assessments and certification of qualifications to individuals registered for qualifications
Undertaking governance - directors and committee members
Dealing with complaints, malpractice and appeals
Employee administration
Employee recruitment

We only collect personal information that we genuinely need

This may include:

Contact details such as name address, email address and phone numbers
Credit card details and any purchases you have made
Date of birth and gender
Unique learner number
Any Special Educational Needs (SEN) requirements for assessments including relevant medical records
Any physical disability that may impact an assessment
Qualifications
Name of your parent or guardian (if you are under 18)
Name and contact details of any next of kin where you are attending an event and are riding/carriage driving)
Nationality and Ethnic origin
In respect of job applicants, we may also collect:

your bank account details, tax and residency status
references from previous employers or educational institutions
contact details for your family members and next of kin
information concerning your health and medical conditions
information about your race, ethnicity and sexual orientation
details of criminal convictions

Provision of assessments to individuals

If you apply to register for one of our qualifications, we will use your information provided to us to process your application. This may include sharing some of your information with the training provider/assessor(s). It may also include sharing your results with your trainer / coach, and collecting and sharing medical information if you choose to provide that to us, and if it is necessary. Our legal basis for using your personal information in this way is for the performance of a contract.

Dealing with complaints and appeals

If a complaint or an appeal is raised with us, we will process the personal information that is provided to us to manage and resolve the complaint or appeal. This may include sharing relevant information with relevant third parties. This may include The British Horse Society, a training provider, a coach or other organisation, depending upon the nature of the complaint and the area it relates to. Our legal basis for using personal information for this purpose is to fulfil our legitimate interest and fulfil our objective of resolving complaints in a careful and appropriate manner.

Undertaking governance

We process relevant personal information about existing and potential directors and committee members for governance purposes. This might include undertaking DBS and other checks to identify any criminal and other activity we need to be aware of to ensure that we select appropriate directors and committee members. Our legal basis for this processing is to meet our legal obligations with Companies House.

Processing expenses

We will use your personal information including your bank account details to process expense claims. Our legal basis for using your information for this is for the performance of a contract.

Employee administration and professional development of staff

We will process personal information of our employees to fulfil our contract with them. This includes payroll processing and the provision of training. We are required by law to share some financial information with the HMRC. We may also need to share some personal information with other organisations, for example solicitors, pension providers. Our legal basis for using your information for this is for the performance of a contract.

Employee and consultant recruitment

If you provide us with information about yourself, such as a resume or curriculum vitae, in connection with a job or consultant application or enquiry, we may use this information to process your enquiry. We will not store this information for any purpose other than that relating to your application. Our legal basis for using your information in this way is for our legitimate interest.

Call Recordings

We record all telephone calls made to the BHSQ office, for the following purposes:

To provide evidence of a business transaction
To ensure that the business complies with regulatory procedures
To see that quality standards or targets are being met

Call recordings are stored for no longer than 12 months.

Cookies and aggregate information collected from BHSQ.co.uk

We use cookies and log files on our website to store information about how you use our website. A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user. This enables us to create a profile which details your viewing preferences. We use your profile to tailor your visit to our website, to make navigation easier and direct you to information that best corresponds to your interests and country.

Aggregate information is collected from users using our own web tracker. This information includes users' Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time of visit, number of clicks, error pages and number of unique visits.

This information is not linked to personal profiles or to personally identifiable information provided by users. We use it to analyse visitor trends and use of our website, administer the website and to gather broad demographic information of our website users. Our legal basis for using your information in this way is for our legitimate interest.

Our legal basis for processing personal information

Our legal basis for the purposes that we process personal information is for the performance of a contract, or for our legitimate interests.

We may process personal information because it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party (or to take steps at your request prior to entering a contract). For example, we may process your personal data:

To issue or administer a qualification registration
To administer a training course and award a qualification
To administer the workforce that is delivering qualifications

We may collect and use your personal data if it is necessary for our legitimate interest and so long as its use is fair, balanced and does not unduly impact your rights.

Usually we will only process sensitive personal data if we have your explicit consent. In extreme situations, we may share your personal details with the emergency services if we believe it is in your ‘vital interests’ to do so. For example, if someone is taken ill during an assessment event.

Sharing personal information

We will only share your personal information where we are required to fulfill our contract with you, or legitimate interest, where we have your consent, or we are required to do so by law.

We may share your personal information with third party organisations who will process it on our behalf, for example a mailing house, our website administrator or printers.

If necessary, we may also share your information with caterers, course providers, referees, and coaches.

We may also share your information with our bank to process a payment; our professional advisers (such as our legal advisers) where it is necessary to obtain their advice; and our IT support and data storage providers.

We process employee personal information to fulfil our contracts with our employees and meet our legal obligations as an employer.

Where required, we will process personal information to comply with our legal obligations. In this respect we may use your personal data to comply with subject access requests; tax legislation; for the prevention and detection of crime; and to assist the police and other competent authorities with investigations including criminal and safeguarding investigations.

Personal information provided to BHSQ will be shared with The British Horse Society (BHS) in order to deliver the physical service of providing assessments for the qualifications to be attempted. Data will be held on BHS IT platforms and managed by BHS IT staff. Access to the data is via the BHS Data Protection Lead. Data will be available to the necessary personnel within BHS in order to deliver the full range of services necessary to provide learners with the qualification they are attempting to achieve. The lawful basis for this is to fulfil a contract.

Transferring personal data outside of the EEA

From time to time, we may need to collect or send some personal information outside of the EEA, for example when we transmit information about assessments to centres based in non-EU countries. If we transfer personal information to countries or jurisdictions which do not have a similar standard of data protection law in place, we will only do so to fulfil our contract with you and we inform you in advance of the need to transfer the information. For information about international transfers of personal data, you can contact the Data Protection Lead at dataprotection@bhs.org.uk

BHS International

Information belonging to non-EU citizens - who are physically within the borders of the EU at the time of processing of their personal data - is covered by the UK Data Protection Act 2018, GDPR, and by this Privacy Policy.

Information belonging to both EU and non-EU citizens - who are physically outside of the borders of the EU at the time of processing – is covered by GDPR, and by this Privacy Policy. These individuals are Data Subjects under GDPR because BHSQ is an organisation “established” in the UK.

Your rights

If you no longer wish to receive communications about products and services from us, please contact contactpreferences@bhs.org.uk. You can also unsubscribe at any time to emails that we may send to you about the products and services that we think will be of interest to you.

You also have the right to:

Request a copy of the information we hold about you. Requests should be addressed to dataprotection@bhs.org.uk. We will respond within 28 days of receiving your written request.
Tell us to change or correct your personal information if it is incomplete or inaccurate. Please contact us at contactpreferences@bhs.org.uk
Ask us to restrict our processing of your personal data or to delete your personal data if there is no compelling reason for us to continue using or holding this information. Please contact us at dataprotection@bhs.org.uk
Receive from us the personal information we hold about you which you have provided to us, in a reasonable format specified by you, so that you can send it to another organisation. Please contact us at dataprotection@bhs.org.uk
Object, on grounds relating to your specific situation, to any of our processing activities where you feel this has a disproportionate impact on you. Please contact us at dataprotection@bhs.org.uk

Please note that we may be entitled to refuse requests where exceptions apply: for example, if we have reason to believe that the personal data we hold is accurate or we can show our processing is necessary for a lawful purpose set out in this Privacy Policy.

How long we keep your personal information

We will hold your personal information for as long as is necessary. We will not retain your personal information if it is no longer required. In some circumstances, we may legally be required to retain your personal information, for example for finance, employment or audit purposes.

We will keep education, training and qualification records indefinitely, in order to administer training and manage on-going entitlement to qualifications and further training and to provide statistical data for analysing our education and awards provision. Any Special Category data will be held for 3 months after the assessment/award date, in order to facilitate any complaint or appeal process.
We will keep records of assessments and events for 6 years, in order to facilitate any malpractice and/or insurance claim resulting from the activity.
We will keep complaints, appeals and malpractice records indefinitely, in order to administer and manage on going investigations. Where appropriate, provide a baseline for tracking investigations against centres/individuals for future reference to make informed decisions around accreditation/qualification/safeguarding/welfare issues, as is relevant.
We will keep governance records for 12 months, in order to administer the mechanism for carrying out directors elections and in case of complaint.
We will keep DBS records for 6 months, in order to comply with our legal obligations
We will keep Safeguarding records indefinitely, in order to comply with legal obligations
We will keep staff records indefinitely, in order to comply with pension and tax obligations
We will keep expenses records for 7 years, in order to comply with our legal obligation
We will keep call recordings for no longer than 12 months. Individual recordings may be kept for longer if they are part of an investigation or complaint which is ongoing.

Changes to this policy

This Privacy Policy may change from time to time. Where practical we will provide you with an updated Privacy Policy from time to time. However, we also recommend that you please visit this webpage periodically to keep up-to-date with the changes in our Privacy Policy.

Making a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office

If you are not satisfied with our response to any query you raise with us, or you believe we are processing your personal data in a way which is inconsistent with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office whose helpline number is: 0303 123 1113.